Government Contractor Fraud Whistleblower Rewards Can Be Earned Under Military Contractor Fraud, Construction Contractor Fraud, and Procurement Contract Fraud

Federal Government Whistleblower Reward Laws offer large financial rewards to whistleblowers that expose significant fraud against the Federal Government. To date these laws have resulted in payments of over $3 Billion paid to whistleblowers for exposing fraud against the government. Common types of fraud that can be the basis of a government contractor fraud whistleblower reward case include military contractor fraud, road construction fraud, HUD fraud, FEMA fraud, grant fraud, loan fraud, defense contractor fraud, patent fraud, and government procurement fraud.

Procurement Fraud Whistleblowers, Defense Contractor Fraud Whistleblowers, and other Government Contractor Fraud Whistleblowers With Original Evidence of Procurement Fraud,
Defense Contractor Fraud, or Other Government Contractor Fraud Can File Qui Tam Government Contractor Fraud Whistleblower Lawsuits and Receive Large Rewards

The Federal Government originally enacted Whistleblower Reward Laws to encourage citizens to expose fraud committed by military contractors. However, these laws have been significantly expanded and strengthened to include several different types of federal government fraud including construction fraud, procurement fraud, HUD fraud, FEMA fraud, student loan fraud, Medicare fraud, and grant fraud. These laws are designed not only to reward and protect whistleblowers but to expose corrupt government contractors that price gouge, provide defective products, seek payment of services that were not provided, or provide false information to the government for the purpose of falsely claiming payments, benefits, grants, or government contracts.

These Whistleblower Reward Laws are part of the Federal False Claims Act and allow whistleblowers that are aware of and have specialized knowledge of significant fraud against the government to report the fraud and receive from 15% to 30% of the money recovered by the government. As the citizen is standing in the shoes of the government under the Federal False Claims Act, claims made under the Act are often referred to as “Qui Tam Claims”. The term qui tam is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur” which means “he who sues in this matter for the king as well as for himself”. As many United States laws are based on English common law and the United States is a democracy, the whistleblower is filing a claim for the people of the United States and the whistleblower. To learn more about qui tam government contractor whistleblower reward lawsuits and procurement fraud whistleblower reward lawsuits, please go to the following web pages:

Whistleblower Protection Laws

Whistleblower protection laws serve to prevent an employer from engaging in retaliatory conduct (making disparaging and defamatory comments, demoting whistleblowers, casting whistleblowers as troublemakers, suspending suspected whistleblowers, reducing or cutting pay, transferring the whistleblower, denying the whistleblower promotions, denying the whistleblower benefits, terminating the whistleblower on false charges, unlawfully releasing personal information about the whistleblower, isolating the whistleblower from other employees or information, and threatening the whistleblower) against an individual that has blown the whistle on fraudulent conduct and unlawful conduct including False Claims Act Lawsuits.

There are a variety of types of whistleblower protection statutes that may apply to a particular whistleblower action. The main goal of these statutes is to offer protection to heroes and whistleblowers that are strong and brave enough to stand up to corporations and senior executives that are fraudulently stealing from the United States government, state government, or local governments or intentionally violating health and safety laws.

Employee whistleblower recovery laws in the United States have been recently passed and strengthened to encourage employees with specialized knowledge of fraud to blow the whistle on significant fraud. These employee whistleblower recovery laws provide strong whistleblower protections and large economic incentives to employee whistleblowers. For more information on Employee Whistleblower Laws, please go to the following web page, Employee Whistleblower Award & Recovery Lawsuits.

Qui Tam Actions and Bounty Actions Create Economic Incentives through Whistleblower Recovery Law that are Extremely Effective in Exposing and Preventing Fraud Against the Government as well as other Unlawful Conduct

Offering large financial awards and economic incentives to persons with knowledge of crimes and criminals including offering whistleblower rewards and whistleblower bounties have been an extremely effective method of identifying unlawful conduct, crimes, and criminals. When the government offers the economic reward to private citizens for exposing fraud against the government, such actions are called “qui tam actions”. In these actions, the plaintiff is suing on their own behalf as well for the government and taxpayers.

The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act are based on the theory that one of the least expensive and most effective means of preventing frauds on taxpayers and the government is to make the perpetrators of government fraud liable to actions by private persons acting under the strong stimulus of economic benefit as well as patriotic duty, personal ill will, and/or strong personal ethics.

The strong public policy behind creating an financial reward for whistleblowers is that the government would be significantly less likely to learn of the allegations of fraud, but for persons in certain positions with specialized knowledge of Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud, defense contractor fraud, investment fraud, foreign business fraud, tax fraud, or significant fraud that has been committed. Congress has made it clear that creating these financial incentives is beneficial not only for the government, taxpayers, and the realtor, but is an efficient method of regulating government to prevent fraud and fraudulent schemes.

The central purpose of the qui tam whistleblower reward provisions of the False Claims Act as well as the IRS whistleblower reward, SEC whistleblower reward, and CFTC whistleblower reward bounty actions is to set up incentives to supplement government regulation and enforcement by encouraging whistleblowers with specialized knowledge of significant fraudulent schemes against the government and the public to blow the whistle on the fraudulent and criminal acts.

The more recent enactment of the financial fraud whistleblower reward laws are response to large scale fraud that almost collapsed the world financial markets. These new bounty actions work under the same premise as extremely successful qui tam whisleblower reward laws. By encouraging private citizens with specialized knowledge of financial fraud, the government is seeking to deter investment fraud, securities fraud, SEC violations, retirement fund fraud, corporate malfeasance, violations of the foreign corrupt practices act, and other forms of financial fraud by offering rewards or bounties to persons that properly expose this fraud.

History of Whistleblowers Lawsuits, Government Fraud Lawsuits, and Qui Tam Lawsuits

Governments have long had trouble with unscrupulous government contractors defrauding the government by providing defective goods, over billing services, and seeking payment for goods and services never provided. The solution that many governments have created is to set up economic incentives for whistleblowers with inside information of fraudulent government contracts to blow the whistle on government contractors that are committing fraud.

Qui tam actions were used in the 13th century England as a way to enforce the King’s laws. These actions have existed in the United States since colonial times, and were embraced by the first U.S. Congress as a way to enforce the laws when the new federal government had virtually no law enforcement officers.

During the Civil War, corrupt military contractors were defrauding the United States Army out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and putting troops at risk by supplying troops with defective products and faulty war equipment. Illegal price gouging was a common practice and the armed forces of the United States suffered. In response, Abraham Lincoln enacted the Federal Civil False Claims Act. A key provision of the act was known as qui tam.

This Act was weakened in 1943 during World War II while the government rushed to sign large military procurement contracts. However, it was strengthened again in 1986 after a long period of and increase in military spending as well as many stories of defense contractor price gouging and government waste.

Under Federal law, whistleblower recoveries can come through four different whistleblower recovery laws. Federal False Claims Act is the oldest of the laws and under this law the Federal Government has brought in approximately $30 Billion. Under this law successful whistleblowers have been awarded over $3 Billion and these whistleblower rewards are expected to continue to expand as many states are enacting their own false claims act laws. The Federal False Claims Act was recently amended by the Federal Enforcement and Recovery Act (FERA) including expanding the reach of the Federal False Claims Act to include subcontractors working under a government contractor and other parties working with government contractors. The Federal False Claims Act was also expanded protection for employee whistleblowers. States have also been encouraged through economic incentives to enact their own Medicaid False Claims Act whistleblower recovery laws. These state whistleblower recovery laws must be at least as strong as the Federal False Claims Act whistleblower reward laws for the state to receive the increased economic benefits from the Federal Medicaid Fraud Recovery Program.

Through Qui Tam Whistleblower Reward Lawsuits billions of dollars have recovered from fraudulent government contractors that have stolen large amounts of money from the government and taxpayers. It is extremely important that Whistleblowers continue to expose fraudulent billing practices and corruption that cost billions of dollars.

If you are aware of a large government contractor that is defrauding the United States Government out of millions or billions of dollars, contact Qui Tam Whistleblower Reward Lawyer and Bounty Action Whistleblower Reward Lawyer, Jason Coomer via email message or use our Submission Form. As a Texas Whistle Blower Lawyer, he works with other powerful qui tam lawyers that handle large Government Fraud cases. He works with San Antonio Whistleblower Lawyers, Dallas Whistleblower Lawyers, Houston Government Fraud Lawyers, and other Texas Whistleblower Lawyers as well as with Whistleblower Lawyers throughout the nation to blow the whistle on fraud that hurts the United States and taxpayers.